Handball

Rackard League Handball will take place in early 2016

RACKARD LEAGUE HANDBALL REPORT 2015

Primary School’s Handball competitions, organised by the Rackard League and sponsored by Allianz, took place in early February in St. Joseph’s Community Centre, Wexford. Well over a hundred boys and girls came, representing fifteen primary schools from North, South, East and West of the county of Wexford.

Glynn N.S. maintained their record as the most consistent handball school by winning the trophy for the Best Overall School Award. They were helped by a very strong girls’ team led by Emma Phelan who followed up on her success U11 last year by winning the U13 title.

Jodie Keeling (Glynn) also retained the U11 Singles title for her school, while the U11 Doubles team narrowly lost to St. John of God P.S., The Faythe, Sophie Kelly and Ellie Murphy O’Gorman. The Coolgreany U13 Doubles team of Shauna Owley and Lauren Johnson defeated Ferns in the last of the girls’ competition.

Seventy boys took part in the U11 and U13 competitions with Kennedy Park School winning two of the four titles. Josh Byrne Kavanagh retained the U13 Singles for his school while Rory Dobbs and Shane Kehoe brought home the U11 Doubles title. Mark Doyle from St. Fintan’s Taghmon moved from being U11 Singles Champion last year to an U13 Doubles title with Conor Murphy as his able partner.

Johnny Goggins from New Ross C.B.S. Primary was crowned U11 Singles champion following his narrow victory over Bobby Doyle (Taghmon). The aggregate scoring worked in his favour, even though he lost the second game (11-6, 10-11). All the Wexford winners will go on now to represent their county in the Cumann na mBunscoileanna Leinster Finals, which this year will be hosted again in St. Joseph’s Wexford.

Many thanks to the Primary Teachers who helped organise the two day event, to the parents who supported and especially to the Referees :- Séamus Buggy, Gavin Buggy and Miley Cash.

All the winners got to play in the Leinster series of the Primary Schools Competition, also sponsored by Allianz, which was again hosted by St. Joseph’s Handball Club. Facing teams from Kilkenny, Offaly, Dublin, Laois and Kildare, the u13 Boys Doubles from Taghmon, were the only Wexford team to qualify for the All- Ireland series.

Well done to Mark Doyle and Conor Murphy who represented St. Fintan’s N.S., Taghmon, Wexford and Leinster in the All Ireland Cumann Na mBunscoil Finals Day in Kingscourt Co. Cavan. This shows the strength of handball in Wexford where the boys were playing out of their age group. First they played Ulster and won 15-6 15-6, next up were Munster where the boys bet them 15-10 15-12, their final game was against Connaught and the boys came through this game as well beating them 15-8 15-11.

A very memorable day was had by the boys, they got to meet and get photos with the top handballers in Ireland. And then they got to watch these senior players in action as they were playing the semi-finals of the All Irelands Senior Championship.